James Purnell: Not at all. We wanted to modernise the service and we would have done that whatever the level of unemployment. We merged Benefits Agency and Employment Service offices so that when people sign on, they have to look for work as well. That process was recommended and praised by not just the National Audit Office, but the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, who commended the modernisation as a model big public sector project of its kind. The modernisation has been done precisely to improve the service for people, and it has improved.
	In Plymouth, we are processing claims in 10 days, which is a significant improvement on two years ago. We are able to do that because of the modernisation programme, which has made the system more efficient and released resources so that there can be more front line advisers and so we can give better help to people. I would have thought that the hon. Gentleman's party supported efficiency, but obviously it does not.

James Purnell: The hon. Lady makes an important point. She may know that we have been conducting a pilot with the Local Government Association and Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs to look at how we can provide a single place for claiming benefits from the HMRC, housing benefit and benefits from us. That has been so successful that we are now rolling it out around the country. She makes exactly the right point: people should have a convenient service whereby they can go into Jobcentre Plus and claim all those benefits in one place.

Andrew Love: Even given the introduction of personal accounts, a fair amount of evidence is emerging to suggest that in the next generation and the generation after that, significant numbers of retired people will be living in poverty. Is my right hon. Friend aware of that, and has any research been carried out which might lead to action that ensures that future generations can live in dignity?

Kitty Ussher: My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise this issue, and we will, of course, evaluate and review the SMI package in due course. It is worth making it clear that people can receive SMI even if they are on contribution-based JSA, if they are single and meet the qualifying criteria for income-based JSA in terms of the level of savings and so on. However, I suspect my hon. Friend refers to situations when somebody is part of a couple, in which case she is right in that the remunerative work rule means that it is long held that they cannot access income-based benefits of any kind if their partner is working more than 24 hours per week. It is precisely to help and support this type of family in such circumstances that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing will shortly be introducing the mortgage support scheme.

Rosie Winterton: Obviously, the hon. Gentleman's constituent would not have been very pleased of being accused of being in prison if he was not. However, we have been able to ensure that the targeting of pension credit has become increasingly successful. Of course we regret any errors, and I am sure the hon. Gentleman will pass our apologies on to his constituent, but, in general, I hope he will realise that pension credit has helped millions of very vulnerable pensioners, particularly since this Government came to power.

Adam Holloway: Given the current economic situation, which obviously has nothing to do with the Government's stewardship of the economy, does the Secretary of State think that it will still be possible to get 1 million incapacity benefit claimants back to work and if not, what sort of figure does he think is doable, and in what sort of time frame?

James Purnell: Absolutely—anybody who is defrauding the benefit system is taking money away from people who genuinely need it, which is exactly why we have halved fraud over the past 12 years and why we are taking measures to crack down further on people who defraud the system in the Welfare Reform Bill, which will be discussed tomorrow. As my hon. Friend knows, right from the first Labour MP's speech in this House—that of Keir Hardie—we have argued for the support to get people back in to work, but also for making sure that they should have the obligation to do so. That is what tomorrow's Welfare Reform Bill does, and it will make a genuine difference to reducing child poverty and to increasing employment all around the country.

James Purnell: Of course, we do not speculate on Budget questions. What I can tell the right hon. Gentleman, which is a fact, is that we brought forward the uprating to this January by having the £60 bonus. His party opposed that, and they should be apologising to pensioners around the country, because his party wanted to deprive people who needed it of that £60.

Joan Walley: I know that my right hon. Friend is aware of the issues affecting the ceramics industry. What plans does he have to visit Stoke-on-Trent to talk to the workers there about what more can be done to help get them into work, and what more he can do at Cabinet level to try to get the investment in tableware and in bricks that could be part of the regeneration that we need for the country as a whole?

James Purnell: My hon. Friend may be glad to know that I plan to visit the area shortly to follow up on a conversation that I had with the general-secretary of the Unity union. It is pioneering an approach in which it brings together its own money for investing in training with money from the regional development agency and from Jobcentre Plus, to make sure that we can give people help even before they are made redundant and to get them back into work as quickly as possible. I know that this is a vital industry in my hon. Friend's area and that she has campaigned long and hard for it. I will continue to work with her on doing that.

Kerry McCarthy: This Wednesday marks the 10th anniversary of the Government's commitment to abolishing child poverty. Could the Minister reassure the House that despite the economic downturn, we will not depart from that ambition and we will do all we can to ensure that we meet our targets?

Kitty Ussher: When the Conservatives ran this country, child poverty doubled—we turned that around, and I am proud of the fact that 600,000 children have been lifted out of poverty since 1997, with a further 500,000 children due to be lifted out of poverty as a result of policies that are in the process of being implemented. We want to go further, which is why my hon. Friend is right to raise this issue and why we will be legislating this year to eradicate child poverty in this country.

Douglas Carswell: I am told that the other week all of the jobcentres in my constituency had only a dozen or so jobs available, yet many hundreds of local people were looking for work. What do Ministers propose to do—rather than just say—to help those people back into work and to stem the rising tide of unemployment in Essex?

David Taylor: The direct payments to carers initiative has been very useful in many ways, but what is the position of people whose spouses are in the final stages of dementia and who do not want to be bothered with the forest of administration and paperwork that is associated with that initiative? The alternative is a high charge from the local authority to do it on their behalf. I wonder if my right hon. Friend would discuss that serious dilemma with me, and especially a specific constituency case that cropped up this very weekend.

Alistair Darling: With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement about the meeting of G20 Finance Ministers and central bank governors held on Friday and Saturday, to prepare for the meeting of leaders and Finance Ministers in London next month.
	Since November, when the G20 last met in Washington, we have seen a collapse in international trade—a much deeper and more widespread economic downturn—with every country in the world affected. In October, the International Monetary Fund was forecasting world growth this year of 3 per cent. Now it is predicting negative global growth for first time in 60 years.
	At the meetings, it was clear that every G20 country was determined to act together to restore growth and take steps to restore bank lending, as well as prepare for recovery. There was unanimous recognition, too, that we must take action to help emerging and developing economies deal with this global downturn. We agreed on the following.
	First, to support our economies, we agreed that must take whatever action is necessary, for as long as it is necessary, to boost demand and support jobs. Many countries have already taken substantial steps to support their economies. The IMF calculates that in the United States, this year's fiscal stimulus is worth 3.5 per cent. of GDP; in Germany, 3.2 per cent.; in China and France 2.6 per cent.; and here too, our fiscal stimulus is 3.4 per cent. of the economy. We agreed that we should be ready to do more if necessary—not all countries in the same way or at the same time, but whatever is needed to deal with today's problems and prepare for recovery.
	Secondly, to support people and businesses, it was recognised that it is essential to restore bank lending. It was agreed that countries need to consider the full range of options available, including liquidity support, recapitalisation, and dealing with assets for which there is no market or whose value has fallen significantly. On dealing with these assets—something that we, America and other countries are already doing—while there is no single solution or overnight fix, we developed a common framework, so that countries can use the full range of options when dealing with the immediate problems in their banking systems.
	Thirdly, on monetary policy, we welcomed recent reductions in interest rates, and G20 central bank governors made a commitment to maintain lower rates for as long as is needed. That is important, as it sends a clear signal that central banks all over the world will keep interest rates at low levels to support economic recovery. It was agreed that central banks can also use measures other than interest rates, and that is why the Bank of England, the US Federal Reserve and the Swiss Central Bank are currently putting money into the economy through their credit easing programmes.
	It was also agreed that the financial supervisory and regulatory regimes need to be strengthened, both nationally and internationally. There is significant consensus emerging, here and across the world, that we need to reform the system of banking regulation. That is why I asked Lord Turner, when he became chairman of the Financial Services Authority in the autumn, to come forward with recommendations on how to strengthen our regulatory regime. He will publish his proposals this week. I expect his overview of the system to cover four broad themes: first, capital and liquidity rules; secondly, remuneration and the links to risk management; thirdly, how better to anticipate risks to the wider economy presented by problems in the financial sector; and fourthly, rather than our abolishing our single regulator, how the FSA can be strengthened to regulate large complex institutions.
	It was clear at the G20 meeting that financial regulation in most countries needs strengthening. In particular, all important financial institutions should be regulated, including those hedge funds that are systemically important. Wider regulation must be complemented by strengthening prudential oversight in looking not only at individual banks, but at how they contribute to wider risks to the economy. In future, banks throughout the world must have sufficient reserves at all times, and regulators need powers to ensure that banks do not over-extend themselves.
	We must also improve international co-operation, building on the 25 supervisory colleges set up since last year to supervise banks that trade across the world. We also need a joint international early warning system that will enable us to deal with emerging problems sooner. That means working within the European Union and recognising the need for co-operation, which we have been demanding for some time, while recognising the essential role of national regulators.
	We also agreed a range of other measures on international banking supervision. All credit rating agencies need to be regulated. There needs to be full transparency of off-balance sheet exposures. Accounting standards need to improve. Regulation will cover payment and bonus systems. We agreed that tax havens must be opened up, and we welcomed recent announcements by Switzerland, Hong Kong, Andorra and Singapore that they will share tax information according to OECD guidelines. Here at home, we expect banks to comply fully with their tax obligations, and I can tell the House that I have asked Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs to publish shortly a draft code of practice on taxation for the banking sector, so that banks comply with not just the letter but the spirit of the law.
	The World Bank currently estimates that 129 developing countries, many of them in sub-Saharan Africa, are facing financial shortfalls, and up to 90 million more people could fall into poverty as a result of this global crisis. We agreed that we must minimise the impact of the crisis on developing and emerging economies, many of which—they include India, Indonesia, Turkey and South Africa, for example—were represented at the G20. We agreed that that would require a very substantial increase in resources for the IMF, and that the development banks have the capital that they need. Agreement on total levels of support will need to be reached next month.
	We remain committed to fighting protectionism and maintaining open trade and investment. That is essential if we are to avoid a prolonged downturn. It is also imperative that the international institutions reflect the reality of the day; the IMF and the World Bank were set up 60 years ago. Once when we talked about the global economy, we meant the west and Japan, but not any more. For example, China is already the world's third-largest economy. Emerging and developing countries need to be at the top table too, so we agreed that the next review of IMF representation should be concluded by January 2011, while World Bank reforms must be completed by next spring. We welcomed the recent decision to extend the Financial Stability Forum to cover all G20 member countries.
	The G20 leaders and Finance Ministers will meet again in three weeks' time. We must seize the moment to make a real difference, supporting our economies, dealing with the banks' problems, and preparing for recovery. Ours must be a time for renewal to tackle the downturn and build a more sustainable future. I commend this statement to the House.

Vincent Cable: I thank the Chancellor for sending me his statement.
	I represent an party that is internationalist, so I naturally welcome efforts to save the world, but saving the world does start here. Many of the activities discussed at the summit could be much better dealt with at a UK level. First, may I ask the Chancellor about tax avoidance and tax havens? The Government have had 12 years to identify many of the problems in this area, especially as many tax havens are in British dependent territories. Why did they not move on that problem earlier?
	I welcome the Chancellor's comment in his statement that he will produce a code of conduct on tax payments by British banks, but why can the Government not simply stop tax avoidance in banks that are being helped by the British taxpayer? Can he confirm that RBS has stopped its tax avoidance activities? Can he answer the question that I put to his Financial Secretary last week, which is whether Lloyds, now it has been rescued, has agreed to stop some publicly identified tax avoidance devices carried out on a large scale? Since the Chancellor is negotiating with Barclays on its tax avoidance activities, some of which I put into the public domain—indeed, I sent details to the Inland Revenue—can he make it clear that any assistance under that insurance scheme will be made absolutely conditional on Barclays stopping its tax avoidance activities?
	There are clearly international regulatory issues, but the most important of them should surely be dealt with domestically. The Chancellor identified the most important issue in his statement: what he calls the regulation of large, complex organisations. Is it not the case that Britain is in a unique position, quite different from that of the other countries at the G20 summit, in that three of the five largest banks in the world are British and are becoming the responsibility of the British taxpayer? They are so large because they combine British retail, high street operations with what have come to be called the large international casino operations, much of which are centred on investment banking.
	There is a fairly wide cross-party consensus on this matter. It has been expressed in the Chancellor's party by the Chairman of the Select Committee on Treasury, and Lord Lawson made a good statement for the Conservatives this morning on the problem, advocating a reform that splits the banks into their respective component parts. Why is it then that the Prime Minister, two weeks ago, quite specifically ruled out reforms of this kind—the so-called Glass-Steagall reforms? Why cannot the Government have a more open mind? Are they over-dependent on the advice of investment bankers?
	Will the Chancellor follow up his comments on monetary easing and the joint approach to credit expansion? Why is it that in Britain, the Government and the Bank of England are following a pattern of buying up gilts, which drives down the yields on gilts and causes serious problems for pension funds and pensioners trapped in compulsory annuities, while in the United States, corporate bonds are being bought up? Why is there such a big divergence in how these two important countries are pursuing the same policy? Is there some reason for it, or has it just happened by accident?
	My final point relates to the wider global picture. I totally endorse the comments that the Chancellor and the shadow Chancellor made about the future of world trade and trade negotiations, but can I ask the Chancellor what was done at the summit about the collapse of trade credit, which is the counterpart of the collapse of credit insurance in our own economy? That, rather more than protectionist measures, explains the downward spiral in world trade.

Alistair Darling: The hon. Gentleman raises five separate questions, and I shall try to deal with them.
	In each of the Budgets since 1997, we have introduced measures to cut tax avoidance. By its very nature, tax avoidance must be dealt with all the time. As we close one loophole, there are those who will seek to find others, which need to be closed down. It is important to have a code of conduct partly, as the hon. Gentleman says, because of the very complexity of banking and the way in which investment banks and others have sometimes sought to develop instruments in order to avoid paying taxes. That has, in itself, posed a systemic threat to the system, which is one of the reasons why we need a code, so that people abide by the letter and the spirit of the law. That is very important. I cannot talk about individual institutions because the principle of taxpayer confidentiality is important, but I think that given that the public are supporting the bank system, they would expect banks to be prepared to abide by that code. Our intention is to produce a draft code, probably at the time of the Budget, and then to consult with a view to getting it introduced as soon as possible.
	The hon. Gentleman asked about regulation, and he is absolutely right that there is now a consensus. Ironically, there was a consensus 10 years ago, when he himself was also talking about light-touch regulation. It is important now that people see that our regulatory system recognises the reality of the fact that we are the home regulator to some very large institutions, which could bring a lot of wealth into this country; they certainly provide a lot of employment. However, it is important that the regulatory system should be up to the mark and take account of developments today and in the future.
	The hon. Gentleman asked about the Glass-Steagall split. The last time that he raised the issue, I said that it would have more strength if the problem had simply been confined to the investment banks. It was not: retail banks in this country and others got into trouble as well. There are arguments for what the hon. Gentleman said, and they need to be looked at, but I am not sure whether a 1930s-style solution is readily transmissible into what is needed in the early part of the 21st century.
	In relation to quantitative easing and what the Bank of England is doing, I should say that the Bank is also buying corporate bonds, which we regard as important. The hon. Gentleman will know that in the letter that I sent to the Governor of the Bank of England earlier this month authorising him to undertake these activities for monetary purposes, I said that I wanted us to maintain the purchase of corporate bonds.
	Finally, yes, the question of trade credit was raised at the weekend. It is an increasing problem, although I suspect that it will have to be dealt with country by country rather than our trying to find a simply international solution. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: trade credit is a problem not just for large companies but for small ones as well. That is why we are seeing what we can do in this country to try to get that insurance in place.

Alistair Darling: I think that there are lessons to be learned in respect of a whole lot of reforms that have been made over the past 20-odd years. In relation to the Basel process, I would say two things. First, the models that we have adopted in relation to how banks are regulated obviously need to be looked at again. Secondly, the Basel process, which, among other things, governs the amount of capital that banks need to hold, should certainly be looked at, because we are in a situation where the rules tend to exacerbate an already difficult situation, and that needs to be dealt with urgently. It is unfortunate that the Basel process took 10 years to reach fruition, and the year in which it was implemented was probably the worst possible year in which that could have happened. Therefore, this needs to be looked at again, and urgently, and it is not altogether clear that the Basel process is capable of doing that at the present time.

Alistair Darling: Yes, I am very happy to. For example, the scheme to allow businesses time to pay their tax is now helping about 85,000 companies. There are other examples: the VAT reduction is in place, the reduction in basic rate income tax will come in in April, and many schemes have been implemented and are helping people. When the hon. Gentleman asks about such proposals, he must reflect on the fact that he opposes each and every one of them. If the Conservatives had had their way, not one of them would have been in place, because they were not prepared to put a single penny piece towards ensuring that there was help for people and businesses in this country.

Kerry McCarthy: I managed, with impeccable timing, to leave the Treasury Committee just when things started to get interesting. However, when I served on it, I asked regulators whether they could analyse and measure the risk in a system—not only systemic, but institutional risk. They assured me that they did that, but it is now obvious that they did not. How can we ensure, when people with PhDs in mathematics—the rocket scientists—devise new derivative instruments and other products, that some of the regulators can do the same thing and know what they are up to?

Alistair Darling: If I were the hon. Gentleman, I would not make too much of that. I think that he was in Government when PFI was invented.

Alistair Darling: As the hon. Gentleman will appreciate, I am not aware of the circumstances of the construction company to which he refers. If he writes to me about it, I will certainly look at it, but he will appreciate that whether or not the state owns a significant shareholding in it, a bank has to reach a judgment about whether something is a good risk on a commercial basis. I am in no position to pass comment on the particular case, as he knows. It is the case that banks have to make commercial decisions and evaluate the risks to which they might be exposed irrespective of whether they are in public or private hands.

Theresa May: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I seek your guidance on how I can ensure that Government Ministers respect statements that are made in this House. On 27 January in a Second Reading debate on the Welfare Reform Bill, I said that
	"we Conservatives support this Bill".—[ Official Report, 27 January 2009; Vol. 487, c. 203.]
	Yesterday on "The Politics Show", the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Welfare Reform Bill, said:
	"the Bill we want to put through on Tuesday will do that, and the Tories oppose it"—
	a view that I believe he repeated in Work and Pensions questions this afternoon. How can I ensure that Government Ministers respect statements made in this House and do not make such inaccurate statements that are designed to mislead the general public?

Industry and Exports (Financial Support) Bill

Ian Pearson: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
	It is important that the UK emerges from the global downturn rapidly and strongly. The Government have responded and will do whatever it takes to ensure the stability of the financial system and to provide real help to people and businesses during these difficult economic times. However, we cannot secure recovery without willing the means, and this short Bill gives the Government the necessary flexibility to provide further support to industry.
	The Bill makes two small but important amendments, to the Industrial Development Act 1982 and to the Export and Investment Guarantees Act 1991, that will help to strengthen the provision of support for businesses.
	The first clause proposes to amend the cumulative limit on financial support that may be provided under section 8 of the Industrial Development Act 1982. That provides the legislative power for Government to provide selective financial support to businesses. However, just to avoid any doubt, I would like to make it clear that increasing the section 8 financial ceiling does not in itself authorise any actual expenditure.
	The precise purposes for which assistance may be used are set out in the Act. They include promoting the development, modernisation or efficiency of an industry; the creation, expansion or sustaining of productive capacity in an industry; promoting the reconstruction, reorganisation or conversion of an industry; encouraging the growth of an industry; and encouraging the arrangements for ensuring the orderly contraction of an industry.
	The Act does not include support that is provided under the auspices of the designated assisted areas, which is covered by section 7 of the same Act, or assistance for certain sectors, notably banking and insurance, which are covered by separate legislation. The scope of the power under section 8 is nevertheless wide, and has been used as the legislative basis for a wide range of programmes of support for businesses that have been introduced since 1982. They include enterprise fund products such as small firms loan guarantee schemes, regional venture capital funds and early growth funding; enterprise capital funding; the Phoenix fund; support for the post office network, such as the urban post office reinvention programme; and the new programmes of assistance that we have announced to give business additional support during the current economic downturn, including the enterprise finance guarantee scheme, capital for enterprise, and support for the automotive sector.

Ian Pearson: As my hon. Friend will know, we recently announced the provision of £2.3 billion in loan guarantees and exceptional-need loans under the automotive assistance programme to support automotive companies and companies in their supply chain. That potentially includes support for a wide range of companies.
	My hon. Friend mentioned the case of LDV in Birmingham. As he knows, the company has been making a loss for a number of years. We understand from discussions between LDV and officials last Wednesday and Thursday that the management buy-out is proceeding. At present the company is owned by a Russian firm called GAZ, which is responsible first and foremost for the workers at Washwood Heath, who have given the company loyal support for many years. It really must be the responsibility of GAZ to give the company enough support to ensure that it is viable in the future. We have given LDV support and encouragement to enable it to proceed with its application for financial assistance through the European Investment Bank.
	This is clearly a critical time for the company. We made it very clear that without significant further material support from GAZ, its parent company, or from another investor, we would find it difficult to justify providing any further assistance, on top of the £24 million we provided to LDV at the time of the takeover by GAZ.

Ian Pearson: As I have said, my officials have had a number of meetings with LDV on its financial situation, and I do not think it is as straightforward as my hon. Friend pretends, but I am always happy to meet Members who are representing their constituents' interests, and I will be happy to meet my hon. Friend and my fellow west midlands colleagues.

Julie Kirkbride: While this appears to be a very simple Bill to enable the Government to spend more money on our industrial sector, the details are a little unclear to say the least. Will the Minister therefore tell the House which bits of the financial help to be given specifically to the automotive sector will be coming out of the pot that this Bill provides for, and which bits will come out of the EIB, as encouragement has been given to apply to it for money, too? Where will the money for the £23 million green car initiative come from, for example? Also, if the Government are so minded, could these provisions also be used to help car companies with their loan books by giving a spur to people to take out loans to buy new cars?

Mark Prisk: The industry experts in the automotive industry who have been referred to by several right hon. and hon. Members are anxious about the apparent contradiction on whether scrappage is involved in discussions leading up to the Budget. I do not want the final details, but given the importance of vans, can the Minister, as both a Business and Treasury Minister, tell the House whether the Government are considering a scrappage proposal and what progress has been made?

Ian Pearson: The hon. Gentleman has been a Member of this House long enough to know that Ministers do not comment on what will or will not be in the Budget or on discussions leading up to the Budget. He will be aware of the automotive assistance programme, which is a major programme of investment support to the industry. One of my major priorities as a Minister is to ensure that that scheme provides support as quickly as possible. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that we had a seminar with the banking industry and automotive companies last Wednesday that explained in more detail how the scheme operates. It is open for business now and we are encouraging businesses that qualify to make early applications which we will endeavour to analyse speedily so that we can look to provide support. We recognise that it is important that we provide support to the industry at this time.
	Clause 2 proposes a small amendment to the Export and Investment Guarantees Act 1991. The Act governs all of the work of the ECGD—the Export Credits Guarantee Department—which is Britain's official export credit agency. The vast majority of industrialised countries have export credit agencies. Broadly, their role is to support exports by providing insurance against non-payment, for example, if importers go insolvent and cannot pay their suppliers or if the importing country runs out of foreign exchange and cannot pay its international debts. The situation is the same for ECGD, and I believe that its role is of increasing importance in the current economic climate. It assists the export trade of British suppliers of goods and services.
	ECGD's remit is to support exports of capital and semi-capital good and services. That usually means big-ticket exports such as civil aircraft, oil and gas production equipment and services and telecommunications. Often, the buyers of such equipment require medium or long terms of credit. Typically, a civil aircraft is repaid over a 12-year period. Much of ECGD's business involves its giving guarantees to banks, which make loans available to foreign buyers to purchase the UK goods and services. Some Members may recall that ECGD used to support other exports normally sold on short terms of credit. Those exports were raw materials, light manufactured components and consumer durables, which account for the majority of UK trade. That part of ECGD's business was privatised in 1991 and since then providing trade credit insurance has been the responsibility of the private sector.
	ECGD is 90 years old this year. It was set up 1919, after the first world war, to help re-establish trade. It was the first export credit agency in the world, and in these challenging times the support that it can give to industry and exporters underscores its importance for the British economy today. It is an independent Government Department that reports to the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, and its role and purpose is established in law. ECGD's power to support exports is contained in section 1 of the Export and Investment Guarantees Act, and it is that Act that this amendment Bill addresses.
	ECGD's primary power to support exports in section 1 of that Act states:
	"The Secretary of State may make arrangements under this section with a view to facilitating, directly or indirectly, supplies by persons carrying on business in the United Kingdom of goods and services to persons carrying on business outside the United Kingdom."
	However, there is a problem with the word "facilitating". The point is that ECGD cannot be said to have facilitated exports if those exports have already been supplied. However, with changing business practices, ECGD has been increasingly asked to support exports that have, in whole or in part, already been supplied by the time it is able to take a decision on providing its support for the exports in question.
	There are a number of reasons for this situation's having occurred. First, changes in the way that contracts in the high-value capital goods markets are managed often mean that requests for support are simply made later these days. Often, it is buyers or overseas project sponsors who approach ECGD for support, not the exporters. Buyers seek ECGD support after they have procured the exports, and some may already have been supplied.
	Secondly, at the same time as these changes were happening across the world, ECGD's decision-making processes were changing to implement wider Government policy on corruption and on social and environmental impacts. These are mandated by ECGD's business principles. They involve rigorous due diligence, which can delay ECGD's ability to make a decision until supply has commenced. This amendment will allow ECGD to provide its support for supplies that have already been made.
	Last year the Environmental Audit Committee issued a report on ECGD and sustainable development, which recommended that
	"No offer of support should be made, whether actual or provisional, until ECGD's Business Principles Unit has completed its assessment"
	of the project to which the exports are destined.
	That referred to a way that ECGD had tried to overcome the timing difficulties that I have just explained. ECGD would, before the supply was completed, make an offer to issue a guarantee after completion, conditional on satisfaction of its environmental criteria. The EAC was concerned that these offers of support could weaken ECGD's environmental scrutiny. I do not agree that they did, but I am happy that the Bill will allow ECGD to give effect to that recommendation, as well as solving the problems for British exporters, without any dilution whatsoever of ECGD's business principles or the due diligence it undertakes.
	Without this change, British exporters will continue to face the risk of being discriminated against by overseas project sponsors because ECGD cannot give the type of support those sponsors want. Other export credit agencies in competitor nations do not have the same difficulties. Few, if any, are bound by state legislation and none of ECGD's major counterparts has the same difficulty in supporting exports that have already taken place.
	In the current economic circumstances, extra support for British exports is highly important. Over recent months, ECGD has, not surprisingly, received a vast increase in interest in its support and in applications for its assistance. Rather than giving extra support, if this amendment to ECGD's Act is not made, ECGD support will often have to be reduced. ECGD is complaining about the difficulties that ensue when it can give no certainty of its support. The CBI, the British Bankers Association and the British Exporters Association have lobbied intensively on this. They argue that without the change, the UK's competitiveness will be adversely affected. I agree with them, and that is why we are introducing this clause, which will help to maximise support for industry through ECGD at this difficult time.
	We face a unique set of challenges. Together, the measures proposed in this Bill form an important part of the response needed to ensure that businesses have the help they need. I commend the Bill to the House.

Lorely Burt: The Bill is the most recent in a long line of attempts by Government to give industry a shot in the arm. Unfortunately, the well-meaning but incompetent doctor has yet again missed the vein, plunging the hypodermic containing life-giving fluid into a part of the economy where it will do no harm, but from which it will fail to flow through to the main body of the ailing economy, where it is most needed.
	We have a problem, because while the Government are applying a poultice to the sick body of the economy, the banks have applied a tourniquet, preventing the flow of cash through the economy that would nourish and enrich it, and enable it to stagger back to its feet again. The Liberal Democrats will not oppose the Bill today, because we recognise that it includes measures that will help, but we regard it as a wasted opportunity. It is not as if not enough people are trying to tell the Government what they could and should be doing. Over the past few weeks, I have been doing a bit of research in my constituency. I have been talking to businesses big and small, and trying to find out how they are faring and what the Government could do to improve the environment to enable them to survive.
	The first thing that the Government should introduce in the Bill is some form of support or regulation of trade credit insurance. Withdrawal of trade credit insurance is what eventually did for Woolworths. Trade credit insurance insures a company when it has extended credit to another against the risk of not getting paid. If a company has its trade credit insurance withdrawn, other companies become nervous about trading with it because the message given out is that that company is risky to trade with.
	A profitable retail company in my constituency has had its trade credit insurance severely reduced just at the time when it wants and needs to expand. Its suppliers right down the supply chain are having their trade credit insurance cover reduced or even withdrawn, sounding a death knell for many. When a successful company that has no record of financial problems is growing, why would anyone want to reduce its trade credit insurance? The insurer told that company, "Oh, it's not you personally; you're just operating in the wrong sector."
	Trade credit insurers have been described as organisations that are willing to lend an umbrella only when the sun is shining. I would not go quite that far, but it is clear to me that something needs to be done, and fast, to stop perfectly good companies going to the wall for no reason.

Lorely Burt: I am delighted to hear that the Conservatives have changed their attitude towards banking regulation. In the past they have done a great deal to try to introduce lighter-touch regulation of banking. I accept what the hon. Gentleman says about other forms of regulation. In that we share a common approach.
	Many companies are focused completely on the day-to-day cash flow management of their businesses. Instead of reviewing their cash flow every quarter or every month, they are now doing so every week or even every day. They do not want to have their eye taken off the ball by having to contend with new regulations. If they do not give all their emotional energy and attention to managing today, there may not be a tomorrow in which such regulations can take effect.
	A particular concern to potential investors in this country is the propensity of the Government to make decisions and regulations retrospectively. We saw an example of that on 28 January in the Westminster Hall debate on retrospective business rates, concerning the retrospective levying of business rates on struggling port-based firms. Clearly, more regulation is needed in some sectors, such as banking and trade credit insurance, but in other areas the Government could take their foot off the pedal and delay the introduction of some non-vital regulations. My second question for the Minister is this: will the Government impose a moratorium on the implementation of non-essential regulations until the economic situation improves, and will they give some heart to potential investors in this country by publishing a statement of intent showing that they do not intend to impose any further retrospective legislation?
	The Bill will amend section 8(5) of the Industrial Development Act 1982 and section 1(1) of the Export and Investment Guarantees Act 1991. Section 8 of the 1982 Act seems to be the Heineken of industrial financial help, reaching parts that other industrial financial assistance cannot reach. Such assistance has to benefit the UK economy, or any other part or area of the United Kingdom, which is a pretty wide definition. It has to be "in the national interest"—well, obviously—and it has to help when assistance cannot be appropriately provided in any other way.
	The Bill raises the ceiling under which financial assistance can be given from the current maximum of £6.1 billion to a potential total of £16 billion. That is a lot of money, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister why that amount of taxpayers' money was deemed appropriate. Another £10 billion has been added; it is a nice round figure, but what justification is there for it? The figure of £16 billion represents £26,000 for every man, woman and child in this country.  The Independent today has done its sums and calculated that, due to the recession, the personal cost of the downturn for every single British citizen is now £40,000, which is a lot of dosh. We must be sure that money is spent wisely where it really will make a difference.
	The amendment of the Export and Investment Guarantees Act 1991 will widen the definition under which assistance can be given to exporters under the export credit guarantee scheme. The CBI welcomed that measure because it will support transactions where goods have already been exported, such as where early shipment was required before an export guarantee department decision on cover was made. The CBI says that
	"enactment on this amendment will assist exporters in a clear and practical way and should assist in retaining jobs in the UK."
	If it is good enough for the CBI and for the British Bankers Association and other groups, as the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Prisk) mentioned, it is good enough for me.
	How effective has the plethora of Government announcements been so far? The Forum for Private Business says that the Government should not just assume that under the enterprise finance guarantee scheme, the problems of smaller business have been sorted, and that they must consider the looming problems of the cost of finance, business rates and late payment. Can the Minister say just how many companies have benefited from the enterprise finance guarantee scheme, the working capital scheme and the capital enterprise fund? We heard from the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford that no money has yet come through for the latter two schemes. Will the Minister be able to demonstrate that any of these funds are making a material difference, or with regard to the vast majority of companies are the Government just tantalising and teasing business with promises while little or no real money is flowing through?
	The Government have ignored simple, effective and relatively inexpensive Opposition proposals, such as the Small Business Rate Relief (Automatic Payment) Bill, a private Member's Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Peter Luff) only two weeks ago. I will not rehearse the arguments about that, but the Government have ignored that open-goal opportunity to help the smallest businesses that are least well informed about the help that they are already entitled to.
	Some lenders, such as lease financiers, are simply not covered by the enterprise finance guarantee scheme, although 750,000 small businesses rely on lease financing. There is no safety net for those smallest of lenders, which nevertheless play a vital role in helping the smallest businesses as well as larger ones. Will the Government consider providing assistance for lease financing, along the lines of the enterprise finance guarantee scheme?
	The opportunity to deal with the nefarious activities of serial liquidators has also been missed. Such parties trade, run up debt and then liquidate a company, leaving suppliers in the lurch, only to set up again the next day under a similar name. Those people cynically drag down good companies, and their activities are downright theft. If any director were required to register in a simple register of administrations, that would enable a quick search to determine how many times an individual had bumped their company. That would protect good companies against directors bent on a course of exploitation of the trust and good will of others. Will the Minister consider the possibility of creating such a register?
	In conclusion, I should say that the Bill is a missed opportunity. Industry needs an environment in which it can not only compete, but continue to operate. It needs cash, but despite all the announcements that have been made thick and fast in the past few months in committing billions of pounds of taxpayers' money to prop up a banking system so sick that it is haemorrhaging away the blood transfusions that we are administering, vital support is still not making its way to the real wealth creator—industry itself. Taxpayers' money is flowing all right; it is flowing into the coffers of the banks and into an interminable black hole.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable), the Liberal Democrat shadow Chancellor, has been like a seer; he was sending out warnings to the Government years before the crisis that we now face finally arrived. He predicted that the grand edifice of the banking economy would turn out to have been built on sand, and that we would need to nationalise Northern Rock. He has watched the Government pandering to the banks like an over-indulgent auntie to spoilt and uncontrollable nephews and nieces, asking them please to share out nicely the pile of sweeties that they have been given and becoming mystified when they are not good children who do as they are told.
	We now have a majority shareholding in Lloyds HBOS and the Royal Bank of Scotland. My hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham is saying to the Government that it is time to take firm action and make the children share out the sweeties. It is time to nationalise the failing banks and ensure that cash goes not into the greedy mouths of the banking industry, but right to where it is needed—the hard-working companies that are struggling to survive.

Michael Fabricant: Just on the subject of VAT, is my hon. Friend aware that, like so many firms, John Lewis recently said that the reduction in VAT—coming down from 17.5 to 15 per cent., it was so costly to the taxpayer—has made no difference whatever to overall sales? In any case, on 1 January, it is going to go back up again, although we also have to ask, back up to what: will it go back to 17.5 per cent. or will it go up still higher?

John Howell: I was struck over the weekend by the applicability to today's debate of comments made in the Health Committee. Let me remind the House of the conclusions of the Health Committee. Its report was
	"highly critical of policy design and implementation, which... has made meaningful evaluation of initiatives impossible."
	It went on to say that
	"governments have rushed in with insufficient thought, a lack of clear objectives, have failed to collect adequate baseline data, made numerous changes and not allowed time for policies to bed in."
	It went on to recommend that policies be introduced
	"with clearly defined goals and robust measurements for success."
	Before we roll this Bill forward, relevant questions need to be asked about some of those issues and how they apply to the entirety of the Government's approach to the industrial and business sector.
	We need to know what the Government are trying to achieve with this money. I have read the descriptions in section 8 of the Industrial Development Act 1982 and they are obviously necessary to release the money, but they should not be sufficient to release it. We need to understand the Government's strategy; it must not be hidden behind words in continuing discussions that lead to no action being taken.
	It is particularly relevant for us to ask about the context of the disbursement funds, about how the Government view the business and industrial landscape and what it will be like post-recession. It is pretty clear from numerous Government statements that they think that the landscape post-recession will be very similar to what it was pre-recession. I do not believe that that will be the case at all. There will be fundamental changes in the way people deal with credit, for example, yet we see no initiative or great thinking to take that forward.
	A number of hon. Members have picked up on the issue of the car industry. Money has been thrown at it, but what has it actually achieved? The Minister may recall that in a debate on a statement of 27 January, I put it to him:
	"I have listened to the statement twice and I am none the wiser as to how many new cars the money will help to sell. Would the Minister like to tell us?"—[ Official Report, 27 January 2009; Vol. 487, c. 179.]
	It is, perhaps, not surprising that the Minister did not like to tell us. He merely said that it was all in the form of guarantees, and that therefore everything was all right. I do not think that answers of that kind take us much further towards being able to judge whether the money is appropriate and whether it is being well spent.
	I should like the Minister to confirm that the car makers are yet to receive any of the money, and also to set out the framework in which its use will be evaluated: the conditions, the success criteria, how value for money will be judged, and the method and speed of implementation. If the Minister thinks that he has answered the value-for-money question simply by saying that guarantees are better than grants, he has failed to appreciate that the House deserves to see below the top level, and to know how value for money is to be established as individual amounts are disbursed.
	All this bears the signs of pure, blind panic. We have seen a bank recapitalisation which is failing to get money moving and to establish the necessary conditions. Other Members have already spoken of the confusion and difficulty facing, in particular, small and medium-sized enterprises. That was brought home to me on Thursday evening when, in my constituency, I hosted a recession networking event. I brought together businesses and local providers of services, in both the public and private sectors, to help companies in recession. Making sense of the help being offered by the 20 or so representatives had been an impossible task for many businesses—and why should they have to do it themselves anyway? Why should things not be in clear English and easy to understand?
	I must tell the Minister that the event was a great success. I believe that it was attended by just under 150 people, and I think that they all benefited from talking to the providers as well as to each other. But is it not an indictment of the situation we are in, which the Government have made no real effort to improve, that 150 people felt the need to attend such an event because they could not work out what to do by themselves?

John Penrose: This has been a short debate. That may be simply because this is a relatively uncontroversial Bill, but I am saddened to note that the Minister has sat in pretty much solitary splendour on the Labour Benches. No Labour Back Benchers have spoken, although one or two are present and their presence has been much appreciated. It strikes me as incredible that at a time of some of the worst economic conditions that we have experienced for not just one generation but probably several, not a single, solitary Labour Back Bencher thought it important enough and could care enough to turn up and add his or her tuppence-worth. Labour Members apparently did not think it important not only to support their Minister in what he is trying to do, but to try to ensure that their constituents and people around the country understood that they really care about the parlous economic conditions in which businesses are trying to operate.
	However, a number of Members did speak—most, but not all, were Conservative Members, although there were contributions from Liberal Democrats as well—and a number of common themes featured in their speeches. My hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Miss Kirkbride) in particular, but others as well, asked for more details about the schemes that the Bill is supposed to support. The Minister did his level best. He is a decent man, and he tried to ensure that we all understood the various Government-announced schemes for which the funds would be used. I am sure that that was deeply appreciated, but it is clear from what was said by others today that he needs to say a bit more, if possible, in his response to the debate.
	Let me pick up a couple of the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove. It seems that neither the 1982 Act nor the Bill provides for assistance to either banks or insurance companies, but a number of the loan guarantee schemes that we have discussed today involve banks in one way or another. If they do not involve banks, they involve finance arms of car companies and others which—if not outright banks and holders of banking licences—are near-banks, and are certainly the subject of much thought on the part of the Financial Services Authority at present. Will they be excluded from the Bill's provisions, in which case will the Government need to come up with funding through some other route, or will it be possible to use the financing under the Bill to support such various different schemes?
	I understand that the provisions of the Bill are not allowed to apply to areas that have been granted assisted area status. The principal areas with such status at present are Cornwall, the west coast of Wales, the north-west coast of Scotland and the whole of Northern Ireland. If the measures under discussion cannot apply to firms that are based in, or operate in, those areas, how will the Minister be able to make sure that the money raised is directed towards, for example, a car company that has dealerships in districts with assisted area status? Will he offer clarification on that, so that it is put on the record not only for Members of this House, but for the many rather confused members of the business community? This afternoon, we have heard many examples of the incredibly complicated plethora of schemes.
	It is not just the number of schemes that is the problem, large and numerous though they are—and they were read out with careful diction by my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Prisk). As he also pointed out, each one of them has not only its own scheme, but its own application forms and terms and conditions. Therefore, if anybody trying to make an honest living by running a business wants to apply for one of these schemes, they almost have to hold a PhD in Government finance before they can hope to access it. That inevitably means that they are being distracted from the vital day-to-day business of adding value and creating wealth, and making and preserving jobs, and instead are having to focus on the best way to navigate their way through labyrinthine Government bureaucracy, which is clearly not an intelligent or productive use of anybody's time.
	It is also worth while surveying the history behind the Bill. The Minister correctly pointed out in his opening remarks that this all started back in 1982 with a relatively modest amount of money: £1.9 billion. That was still a significant amount of money, however, particularly in those days; it was far from small potatoes. It is instructive to note how that cumulative total limit has grown. In the first 20 or so years, it grew very slowly—from £1.9 billion to just under £4 billion. However, since then—from shortly after the turn of the millennium—we have experienced, as a result of this Government's hyperactivity and the debt-fuelled boom in the country's economy, what is described in business terms as a hockey-stick increase. If we were to graph the rise in the cumulative limit, we would see that it increased very slowly for a long time, and in the past five or six years shot up. As a result, whereas the sum was £1.9 billion in 1982, we are now asked to agree an increase from about £6.1 billion to, in theory, a maximum total of £16 billion. I am afraid that if we ever needed an illustration of the speed with which the wheels have fallen off the Government's economic carriage, that is it.
	The most frequently made and most damning point has been about the problem of implementation and delivery. That point has been made in various parts of the House—I was going to say in "all parts" of the House, but I am afraid there have not been any contributions from the Labour Back Benches. Many people would agree with the principles that the Government are trying to pursue, particularly in their various different loan guarantee schemes, but they have been woefully inadequate in turning their fine words into action—into something practical that business people can get their teeth into and their hands on—by making sure that the banks are starting to lend and that the various different loan guarantee schemes actually function.
	As my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford pointed out, the working capital scheme was supposed to be the Government's flagship scheme for getting credit moving in the economy. It was announced way back in January, but as of last week it had not guaranteed a single loan. The enterprise finance guarantee scheme was supposed to help small firms. It was announced in January, but the Federation of Small Businesses says that only 8 per cent. of its members can find a bank that is actually offering it. The loan guarantee scheme for car manufacturers—much discussed this afternoon—was announced in January, but the Government have only just asked for applications from firms needing help, and they have not disbursed a single penny so far. To be fair, Lord Mandelson realised that scheme was not moving fast enough. He saw it was in trouble and he said that he would "investigate" why it was not getting under way. But as far as anyone can see, the investigation involved sending a junior Minister round to No. 11 Downing street to knock timidly on the Chancellor's door and ask him—"Please, if he wouldn't mind awfully and it wasn't too much trouble"—to pull his finger out.
	That serves to illustrate the problem. We did not need an investigation into the difficulties. The problem was plain for everyone to see: dithering and spin instead of decisive, practical action. We did not need investigations or inquiries; we needed action—we needed Lord Mandelson to sit down with the Chancellor and have what is known in the Foreign Office as a full and frank exchange of views. We need the two of them to put the needs of the country ahead of party rivalries and personal wrangling over who is supporting whom in the running to become the next leader of the Labour party.
	That, however, was not what happened. Britain's businesses did not get the prompt action they needed. Instead, what we got was weeks and months of bureaucratic constipation where nothing happened at all, and then, last week, Lord Mandelson lost his temper and started blaming people. He blamed the Treasury. He blamed the Bank of England. He blamed pretty much anyone he could think of. But the people of Great Britain knew exactly who was really to blame: him, and this Government.
	The tragedy is that this is not just an internal Whitehall squabble where the only winners and losers are a few politicians and bureaucrats. This is deadly serious, because for every day of ministerial indecision, inaction and incompetence, more people lose their jobs, more companies go bust, and more investors lose faith in Great Britain. Rather than losing his temper and lashing out at his colleagues in Government, the Secretary of State needs to buckle down, as should his Ministers. They need to realise that they may have announced something and got a few headlines, but it will not happen unless they roll up their sleeves and get personally involved. They need to forget about the press releases and glossy announcements and get stuck in to the grubby, messy business of implementation.
	The trouble is that that is not likely to happen with this Secretary of State and this Government. They are creatures of PR and spin. They have spent the past 15 years doing it, and it is too late to expect them to change now. Leopards cannot change their spots. That is the tragedy of this recession. If they had moved faster and more effectively, they could have made it shorter and easier for all of us, but they did not, and now the whole country is paying for their dithering and delay. Every community in every part of Britain is feeling it: lost jobs, ruined companies, broken hopes. That is why people are increasingly coming to the same conclusion: it is time for a change.

Ian Pearson: As I have just explained to the hon. Gentleman, the major lending banks have all been providing training to their staff. There is no doubt that as the scheme is a new product, some people will not have received the training that they may might need in the future, but it is important to recognise that the scheme has only been up and running relatively recently.
	With lots of these programmes, one cannot suddenly say, "Rustle me up a spending programme that will get £1 billion of taxpayers' money out of the door within a week." I do not think that our taxpayers would expect the Government to do that. We need to ensure that we are effective in what we do by ensuring that the taxpayer gets value for money and that our programmes are properly monitored and evaluated. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that that is the case with the enterprise finance guarantee.
	I also want to cover the points made about the working capital scheme. The scheme is not open to businesses to apply to, and I think that there has been some confusion about that on the Opposition Benches. We are in advanced negotiations with the banks on guaranteeing some extensive loan portfolios under the working capital scheme, which will help to secure the working capital that is available to many companies in the country. It will also free up additional capital in the process. When we make announcements on the scheme, which we will do, hon. Members will be able to see the scale of the activity that has been involved, but the scheme is not available to businesses.
	Let me explain the automotive assistance programme. Whereas businesses with a turnover of up to £25 million, regardless of their sector, can be eligible under the enterprise finance guarantee, we have introduced a scheme through the automotive assistance programme for businesses with a turnover of more than £25 million whereby they can access up to £2.3 billion in loan guarantees and, exceptionally, loans. A number of hon. Members talked about Government support for the car sector, and the programme is a key initiative. The hon. Members for Bromsgrove (Miss Kirkbride) and for Henley (John Howell) mentioned it, and I want to tell the hon. Member for Henley that the criteria for the scheme have been made publicly available. As it is relevant to companies in the automotive sector with a turnover of more than £25 million, we are talking about a relatively small number of companies—probably fewer than 200. I have written to most of them to explain the details of the scheme. That scheme is open for business.
	As I mentioned, we had a seminar last Wednesday when we went through some of the nuts and bolts of the scheme with the banks and with companies in the automotive supply chain, as well as with the major manufacturers. We want to see early applications and there is no reason why companies should not apply to us right now. We will endeavour to assess the applications as quickly as possible, because I recognise the need to support the automotive sector at this crucial time.

Christopher Chope: I do not think that we are seeking to stifle debate. Indeed, the people who supported the amendment on the Order Paper are people who were determined that there should be debate. The amendment was put in the way that it was to emphasise that we did not have any quarrel with the fact that there is a Youth Parliament, and to emphasise that we wished it well. We did not contradict the main substance of the Government's motion, but we drew attention to the fact that there are other places in the Palace of Westminster where it is possible for the Youth Parliament to hold its annual meeting.
	I put it to my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) that we are not talking about a special, 10th anniversary meeting. As I understand it, the Government are not saying that because of Andrew Rowe's great achievement in setting up the organisation, for its 10th anniversary it should have the right to meet here on a one-off basis. If that were so, the question that I would put to my hon. Friend is: why were the scouts not able to use the Chamber last year for their centenary? When he has answered that, we could talk about other youth organisations, too.
	My hon. Friend made a good point in the earlier debate, when he said that there is a difference between those from older age groups, who could themselves be elected to Parliament, and those from the under-18 age group, who are not eligible for direct election to Parliament, but my point to him is that there are a lot of other youth groups out there doing extremely valuable work with young people in much larger numbers than the Youth Parliament, and which were established much longer ago than the Youth Parliament. If we want to celebrate a particular landmark in the history of an organisation, there is a case for saying that we should allow some of our facilities to be used by it, but that is not the basis on which the Government have put the case for allowing the Youth Parliament to meet in this Chamber.
	I referred to the report that the Government commissioned on the subject. It extends to the best part of 200 pages. I will not refer to it in detail, but the executive summary is basically a cautionary tale to people who might otherwise get carried away with their enthusiasm for the Youth Parliament. It basically says that the Youth Parliament needs to communicate more closely with other young people, and certainly needs to be more representative of all the nations that form part of the United Kingdom.

Christopher Chope: The event may encourage some people to get interested in politics, but of course we must remember that the Youth Parliament is not party political; in other words, it is non-ideological. Not long ago, I was re-reading the splendid book that our late and noble Friend John Biffen produced on this place. In that book, he reminds us of the fact that at the age of 14, he attended his first Conservative conference in Bridgwater and was an active member of the Young Conservatives. Then of course there is my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), who was, I think, 15 when he took the Conservative party conference's main platform by storm with his fantastic speech. Both those people, who were party members in their teens, went on to serve the nation really well as fully fledged Members of Parliament. They did not need a Youth Parliament to enable them to do that; all that they needed was a receptive party political organisation, namely the Conservative party.

Christopher Chope: If the meeting took place in Committee Room 14, it would take place in what is arguably the most important Committee Room in the House. There is a magnificent painting there that depicts what happened when the House rebuffed those who came along, on behalf of the King, seeking to arrest Members of Parliament, only to be told where to get off. The mere fact of members of the Youth Parliament going into that historic Committee Room and having explained to them the background to that painting would enable them to have a better understanding of the privileges associated with the House.

Christopher Chope: Mr. Deputy Speaker, I congratulate my hon. Friend on succeeding on getting you to your feet in this debate—

Michael Jabez Foster: My contribution will be of the briefest nature because I do not intend to compete with the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope), thus enabling the debate to go on so long that there will not be a vote. It will be a real challenge to democracy if, after last week's debate, we have yet another debate that does not come to a conclusion.
	I am unashamedly in favour, not of something that is cool, but of something realistic, fair, reasonable and that shows respect and encouragement to the young people of the UK Youth Parliament. Of course it is a privilege to be in this place. Every one of us, as we enter this building, appreciates that it is a place of great history and great precedent, but at the end of the day, as someone said earlier, it is a row of green benches—it is a place. That is what matters most. It has that history, but that adds to the reasons why young people should be encouraged and have the opportunity to take part.

Graham Brady: The hon. Gentleman expresses the view that this is just a room, a place with green benches, which has been expressed by one or two other Members during these debates. Does he, therefore, regard the Speaker's Chair as being just a chair, and does he believe that it should be available for members of the Youth Parliament to use?

Michael Jabez Foster: I do not have a problem with the proposal being of wider application. I do not share the view that this matter is precious, or more especially that we are precious. This is an important place, but we are not that important. The truth is that much of this debate is about us. As my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West (Martin Salter) said, it is a question of only elected posteriors being allowed to sit on these green Benches. I do not understand that concept. We are just ordinary representatives of people. We got voted for, and it is a great privilege to be here, but the members of the Youth Parliament were voted for, too.

Bob Spink: Does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that this place is precious? It is special, and the Speaker's Chair is special, but that is only the case when the Mace is in its place, which is what gives it its constitutional and legal significance? Otherwise, it is just a group of green benches.

Bob Spink: The hon. Gentleman has shown in his earlier interventions and in his speech that he respects the members of the UK Youth Parliament, admires and greatly values what they are doing. He has rightly explained his views on that, but does he not accept that this is not about inspiring members of the Youth Parliament alone? It is about the main debating Chamber and the main Assembly of this country setting an example to the whole of society that the youth out there are our future. We should trust them and respect them. We should show people that we are prepared to give them these green Benches so they can have their say—and we should listen carefully to them.

Philip Davies: I am grateful for that intervention. As my hon. Friend knows, our hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire is a great defender of Parliament as an institution—and Parliament as an institution is worth defending. It is under assault like at no time ever before, so we should not help in the process of treating Parliament with contempt. Rather, we should stand firm and hold up the traditions that people think are very important. When visitors enter Parliament on their visits, they are not allowed to sit on the green Benches. People may argue whether that is right or wrong, but it seems to me that most people I speak to, even those who are in favour of this motion, believe that that should stand and that people should not be able to sit on the green Benches when they come to visit.
	How can we stop visitors from sitting on the green Benches once we have opened them up to the Youth Parliament? Why are members of the Youth Parliament so special compared with everyone else in the country? Why cannot other people have their moment of sitting on the green Benches if that is what they want to do? It is perfectly clear that we are setting a precedent, which will mean that all sorts of groups and individuals will be allowed to sit on these green Benches. People may agree or disagree with that, but let us at least be open about the implications.

Philip Davies: The hon. Gentleman may well have a point. He may well be right. I respect that view if it is the view that he has taken, and given that it may well be the view that other people have taken. However, I do not personally believe that opening the Chamber to the UK Youth Parliament will transform the public's view of politicians. I do not believe that not allowing the UK Youth Parliament, or anyone else for that matter, to use these Benches is what has undermined confidence in Members of Parliament. I think that it is we, as Members of Parliament generally, who have undermined confidence in ourselves. We must also bear in mind that other people were not allowed to use these Benches in the 1980s and 1990s, when turnouts in elections were far higher. Given that that did not stop people from turning out in huge numbers in the past, I do not see why it should make any difference now.

Peter Bone: My hon. Friend is being extremely generous in giving way so many times. Why would the women's institute, which single-handedly took on the previous Prime Minister, not have the right to sit here if we let the Youth Parliament do so?

Christopher Chope: Will my hon. Friend express his view on why he thinks that the motion is whipped business for some of the Front Benchers?

Mark Tami: claimed  that t he Main Question  be now put  (Standing Order No. 36(2)).
	 Main Question  put forthwith.

Henry Bellingham: I wish to raise the case of my constituent, Dr. Adrian Garfoot, and to discuss in a little detail his dealings with the General Medical Council.
	Dr. Garfoot is a very distinguished constituent of mine; incidentally, the Reverend John Garfoot, his father, is a popular and well-known Methodist minister. Adrian trained at the Royal Free Hospital school of medicine and served as a GP in a number of locations—in Yarmouth, Sevenoaks and Kilburn. During that time, he became increasingly aware of and involved with the plight of drug users. He saw that many users and addicts were very sad figures and had often been rejected and failed by NHS treatment centres; I am talking about the 1970s and 1980s. There were long waiting lists. Many of the drug addicts became ever more ill and many ended up in prison.
	Tragically, quite a few of the young addicts with whom Adrian came into contact at that stage, when he was a GP, died from their addiction. He wanted to do something about it, so he decided to move from general practice to specialist drug treatment. Inevitably, that meant moving into the private sector, which he was reluctant to do. It was, however, the only way in which he could get involved with drug addicts from his position as a GP. As a result of his decision, the Laybourne clinic was born. It was launched in 1990 and after a while it moved into London docklands. I had the pleasure of visiting the clinic on a number of occasions. It soon became a centre of excellence and during its first 10 years it treated more than 1,200 patients, whose typical age was 37 and a half—substantially older than 29, which was the average age of patients in NHS drug clinics.
	The overwhelming majority of Dr. Garfoot's patients were long-term addicts who had been injecting themselves for between 20 and 30 years and maintaining their habit through crimes such as theft, burglary, dealing in drugs, prostitution and so on. Most had already spent lengthy periods in prison. At one point, it was calculated that 270 patients at the clinic had between them spent more than 600 years in prison—a fairly staggering figure. Many had been committing up to four crimes a day—in other words, well over 1,000 crimes a year. However, it is interesting that the recidivism rate for drug addicts at the end of a treatment at the Laybourne clinic was only 7 per cent., whereas for those coming out of the prison system it was 54 per cent.
	Dr. Garfoot was rebuilding the lives of many people, dealing with serious medical conditions and restoring family relationships. He enabled those people to get on with a normal life and keep out of trouble. In fact, I worked out that during those 10 years he probably saved the country well over £10 million. Many testified that he actually saved their lives in the process. I want to mention some of the achievements of addicts who underwent treatment at the Laybourne clinic. One reformed addict ended up playing the violin in an orchestra; another founded a national charity; another completed an MA degree in computer studies at the age of 30; and two gained places at medical school. That is a fairly remarkable list of achievements.
	I should like to read out a tribute paid by Gary Sutton, who was one of the addicts treated at the Laybourne clinic. I met him on one of my visits to the clinic. His account refers to a particular occasion in 1996. A patient who was in the clinic with him at the time was being treated at St. Mary's hospital and discharged himself with a butterfly needle still in his arm. A few hours later, laboratory results were returned showing that he had a potentially life-threatening infection. The police were alerted and called to the patient's address, but were unable to find him. The hospital rang up Dr. Garfoot. As it was a Sunday morning, Dr. Garfoot was at his home, but he drove up to London and spent seven hours trying to track the patient down. He eventually found him and took him to Homerton hospital. The following day the consultant rang up Dr. Garfoot and personally commended and thanked him for saving this person's life.
	Dr. Garfoot had a prescribing policy that was based on harm reduction and non-coercive user-friendly protocols. Above all, he used his clinical judgment and independence. He put in place voluntary and supervised withdrawal programmes. It is interesting to examine the guidelines from the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse. When it refers to injectable prescribing, it makes it clear that the recommended daily dosage is between 60 and 120 mg, which is within the effective therapeutic range. Certainly, what Dr. Garfoot was prescribing was within that limit. None of his patients died of any overdose, and there was no evidence whatsoever of diversion of drugs into the wider community. His philosophy was one of maintenance prescriptions with gradual reductions. Let us not forget that many of his patients had been on 12 or more failed oral treatment courses over periods of addiction of 20 to 25 years.
	It is worth looking at what the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse has said. According to Professor John Strang:
	"The message for specialist clinicians is that yes, injectable heroin and injectable methadone have a role to play in the treatment of drug misuse—but it's a limited role and one that needs to be developed very carefully".
	Its guidelines say that
	"injectable maintenance treatment is most appropriate for long-term heroin addicts who have not responded to oral maintenance treatment"
	and that
	"where injectable heroin and methadone maintenance prescriptions are provided as part of a comprehensive treatment programme, both may have beneficial effects on health, social functioning and crime reduction".
	That sums up what Dr. Garfoot was doing.
	It is also telling to have a look at the 2008 drugs strategy. Page 6 states the need to
	"make sure we are supporting the treatment that is most effective, targeted on the right users—with abstinence-based treatment for some, drug-replacement over time for others, and innovative treatments including injectable heroin and methadone where they have been proved to work and reduce crime".
	In Dr. Garfoot's day, the officially preferred and enforced treatment was low-threshold, short reduction therapy. He was struck off for higher-dose long-term maintenance treatment and injectable prescribing, which is now sanctioned. I will come on to his being struck off in a moment, but it is worth pointing out that what he was doing during his years running the clinic was very much in line with current drugs policy, as outlined in the 2008 strategy.
	As I have mentioned, there was no evidence whatever of any diversion of drugs during Dr. Garfoot's time running the clinic. He was always incredibly assiduous in preventing the diversion of prescribed drugs to the wider community. That was recognised on a number of occasions when he clashed with the authorities. There were complaints back in 1992, and later there were further allegations. He was summoned before a Home Office misuse of drugs tribunal under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, on charges of alleged irresponsible prescribing. There was even a raid on the Laybourne clinic, but after analysis of 1,500 prescriptions there was no sign of any discrepancy whatever. Dr. Garfoot was cleared by the then Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), and there was also a finding of abuse of process against his accusers.
	At that stage Dr. Garfoot took the view that he would be left alone, but unfortunately it was not to be. In 2000, the interim orders committee of the General Medical Council imposed serious restrictions on Dr. Garfoot after a number of a complaints against him. He was then taken to the professional conduct committee of the GMC on 11 September 2001—a date that none of us will ever forget, for other, tragic reasons. The finding was that he should be erased from the medical register on the grounds of serious professional misconduct. He decided to appeal to the Privy Council, and lost. I do not want to go into great detail about the GMC's findings. Suffice it to say that it agreed that he had believed that he was acting in the best interests of his patients. It also agreed that there had been no diversion of drugs and accepted that no one had died of an overdose while under his care.
	In due course, the clinic closed. What happened was obviously a disaster for Dr. Garfoot, and I shall turn to that in a moment, but it was an even bigger disaster for the many patients of the clinic. It carried on for a while after Dr. Garfoot left, but it was unable to continue to provide the same level of treatment. A number of patients left, and six of them have subsequently died. Many others have gone back into a life of crime and prostitution and back on to the conveyor belt that leads to crime, inadequate treatment and back to crime again. What has happened is a tragedy, because many of the adults and youngsters concerned had nowhere to go once the clinic had closed down.
	It is worth briefly examining the wider drug situation in the UK, as it puts into perspective the work that Dr. Garfoot was doing. The cost to the UK of drug abuse is absolutely massive. I have had a look at a York university study that puts the total annual cost at £19 billion, which is £850 for each household in the UK. I know that that might not sound a vast amount of money given the billions being thrown at the bank bail-out scheme, but it is a very large amount. It includes the cost of drug-related crime, which comes to £12 billion, and the extra burden on the police, prisons and the NHS. Interestingly, the study also found that 99 per cent. of that cost was caused by a hardcore group of roughly 280,000 users. That puts the nature of the problem into perspective.
	I wish to say a word or two about Dr. Garfoot himself and what has happened to him since. He has been unemployed since he was erased from the register. He has been lost to the profession. I also feel that he has been extraordinarily unfortunate because his case was heard on 11 September 2001 and, since then, the rules have changed.
	An amendment to the Medical Act 1983 was made in 2000 in statutory instrument No. 1803, which came into force on 3 August 2001. It provided that a 10-month suspension would be replaced by a five-year suspension. Of course, that was the Government's response to the Shipman disaster. The minimum period of suspension—erasure—was previously 10 months, but was increased by the then Secretary of State for Health to five years.
	It is interesting to note that, on 2 November 1998 and again on 10 January 2000, Dr. Garfoot was supplied with a copy of procedure rules, which were dated July 1997, on which proceedings against him would be conducted. Paragraph 28 stated that
	"a direction to erase remains effective unless and until the doctor makes a successful application for restoration to the Register. Such an application cannot be made until at least 10 months have elapsed since the original order took effect."
	Paragraph 30 states:
	"Application for restoration may legally be made at any time after 10 months".
	Dr. Garfoot was not informed of that until after his appeal to the Privy Council was heard. In other words, the proceedings against him in 1998 and 2000 were conducted under the unamended 1983 legislation—the statutory instrument did not come into force until 3 August 2001.
	Through me, Dr. Garfoot contacted the then Home Office Minister concerned, the right hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (Mr. Hutton). In his reply, the Minister said that although there was a provision for exempting doctors who had submitted applications for exemption before 3 August, there was no such provision for doctors whose cases were in progress at the given date. I believe that that is incredibly unfair—the goalposts were moved while the process was continuing. It is not only unfair but arguably a breach of article 7 of the European convention on human rights, which states:
	"No one shall be held guilty of any criminal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a criminal offence under national or international law at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the criminal offence was committed."
	Of course, we are not considering a criminal offence, but the GMC professional conduct committee made it clear that it was applying criminal standards of proof. Dr. Garfoot was unfortunate in the timing of the statutory instrument. He takes the view that he and a small handful of other doctors should not have been treated in that way and that some extra flexibility should have been shown.
	I have spoken about Dr. Garfoot's marvellous work, the lives that he saved and the small part that he played in trying to tackle the UK drugs crisis. I want now to refer to a couple of matters that relate to the GMC. Last year, Dr. Garfoot applied for reinstatement, and the hearing took place on 10 March 2008. Before attending the hearing, he was advised that he should not try to challenge the judgment of the original case. He assumed that the outdated "Form S148", which had been sent to him some time previously, still stood. It stated:
	"In the eyes of the law, and of the Professional Conduct Committee, you were guilty of the charge found proved against you. There is no point in arguing to the Professional Conduct Committee that the decision to erase your name was a mistake."
	He arrived at the hearing unrepresented, while the GMC had a top barrister to represent its interests. I question whether there should be an effective inequality of arms in such a tribunal. Dr. Garfoot could not afford legal help, yet the GMC had a battery of lawyers to help it.
	He had no wish to delve into the past, but fully anticipated that the GMC very much would want to. He was shocked, as well as totally unprepared, when two of the four pages of the panel's determination amounted to a rehash of the PCC's original determination from September 2001 and the reasons given by the Privy Council for dismissing his appeal in May 2002.
	The barrister had been instructed by the GMC with the specific intention of putting Dr. Garfoot down and thus presented in his speech a completely one-sided view of Dr. Garfoot's work and his philosophy. When Dr. Garfoot realised what was going on and wanted to put his side of the story, so as to explain his work to the panel—to talk about the patients whose lives he had saved, those whom he had saved from prison and those whose lives he had saved from spiralling out of control—he was told by the GMC that he could not put that part of his argument. He was then silenced quite disgracefully by the chairman, who cut off his microphone. That was an unfortunate state of affairs in March 2008.
	I would like to pick up on a couple of the points that the panel put to Dr. Garfoot. One of the complaints against him, which was also one of the reasons he could not be reinstated, was that he had not had enough recent practical experience, such as attending at a surgery or using new IT systems. As it happens, it is difficult for any GP who has been struck off to get any practical experience. Dr. Garfoot wrote to his postgraduate tutor and asked whether he could sit in on his surgery, but the offer was withdrawn shortly before the practical experience was about to take place.
	It is difficult for any GP to keep up to date with medical knowledge without hands-on clinical experience. As for experiencing new IT systems, the British Medical Association runs courses for that purpose, but they are open only to doctors registered with the GMC. Therefore, although Dr. Garfoot did his level best to keep in touch—he did a great deal of reading and a lot of work on the internet, as well as talking to many of his former colleagues in practice—he was told by the panel that he had not done enough to keep his skills up to date. That reinforces the point that if he had been able to reapply for reinstatement after 10 months, the chances are that those criticisms would not have applied.
	There is another point that I would like the Minister to have a quick look at, because it could be within his jurisdiction, so to speak. Apparently, the panel had no power to impose conditions on Dr. Garfoot's re-registration—indeed, it made that point to him. He argued that he had no intention of going back into drugs treatment, even though that is where his heart lies. Having gone through the experience that he did with Laybourne, all the heartache of the misuse of drugs tribunals, and eventually the hearings before the GMC and the appeal to the Privy Council, he realises that it would not be right for him to go back into treating drug addicts.
	However, Dr. Garfoot wanted to go back into general practice. Even if he could not have been accepted in a local doctor's surgery in my constituency, there could have been many other opportunities, such as working as a locum or an adviser to companies doing medical assessments in the private sector. A host of opportunities was available to him, but unfortunately the panel said that it could not re-register him with conditions. In many ways, the panel would have liked to say, "We will allow you to become reinstated, but the condition is that you can't go back to treating drug addicts." However, the panel was unable to do that.
	I would like to ask the Minister whether he could sit down with the GMC and discuss that. It is not just my constituent Dr. Garfoot who is affected. We are talking about 100 or so doctors who have been struck off in this period and 40 or 50 doctors who have been struck off, suspended or erased for similar instances of alleged misconduct in the field of drug treatment as those involving Dr. Garfoot. There is a large pool of talent out there. It might not be appropriate for some of those doctors to be reinstated, but some certainly want to be reinstated. Some of them are even anxious to be reinstated, yet they have no chance whatever of succeeding in that. Dr. Garfoot will be reapplying this year and I will do my best to support him. I know that other hon. Members, particularly the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon), who has also looked into the case very carefully, will be doing the same.
	My next point on the GMC relates to its use of draft determinations and predetermined sentences of erasure. It has now been admitted by the GMC's own solicitors that the assistant registrar, who was also the secretary of the professional conduct committee, would either write or direct clerks to write draft determinations some weeks prior to the professional conduct committee sitting. The draft would then be handed by the committee secretary to the chairman and the panel to be read out as the final determination. In these cases, the draft also contained the predetermined sentence of erasure, which basically means that many of these hearings were effectively a complete sham.
	I have looked into a number of other cases, as well as Dr. Garfoot's. It was interesting to have a close look at the GMC paperwork in Dr. Garfoot's case. The findings are listed by way of a decision. One should note that, at that point, the panel concluded for the day. On the following day, there was the mitigation and then the panel read out the determination, which bore very little relation to the decision. Exactly the same pattern of events—the use of draft determinations and predetermined sentences of erasure—happened in the case of Dr. Jennifer Colman. As it happens, she is not my constituent, but I have met her in Norfolk; she is a resident of mid-Norfolk. It was the same in the case of Dr. Hickey.
	I have to say that I find this quite extraordinary. Here we have a very important and prestigious professional body predetermining the outcomes of professional hearings. That seems to me to be quite staggering. I find it extraordinary that that should happen. Another case, known as the Munday case, went right up to the House of Lords, and it holds that a magistrates clerk should not retire with magistrates. In the case of the GMC, the clerks were retiring, and in the earlier case they dealt with the screening process, the intermediate process of preliminary proceedings and then sat as committee secretaries on the PCC, as well as drafting the draft determinations that ended up as the final determination. It is certainly worth looking at that case, which has governed the way in which many other professional organisations operate. Clearly, something has gone very badly wrong.
	Is the Minister aware that the GMC's professional conduct committee was operating by using predetermined recommended sanctions, including erasure, during the 1990s? Is he aware that those draft determinations were written by assistant registrars weeks before the hearings? Does he approve of that practice and does he know whether it is still in operation? Does he agree that if that was indeed happening—we have no reason to believe otherwise, as that is what the GMC's own solicitors are telling us—it surely represents a breach of article 6 of the European convention on human rights on the right to a fair trial. That right is not only laid down and encapsulated in that convention, but is part of our own law as a result of the Human Rights Act 1998.
	I would be grateful if the Minister answered those questions about the GMC, as they are pretty fundamental. Here we have a hugely prestigious and important organisation, sitting in judgment on the lives of its members. I have looked at the workings of a number of professional bodies, which obviously have to adopt the highest possible standards of procedure. It is essential that they do so to maintain the confidence of the profession. I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that if the GMC has behaved and is behaving in this way in a number of cases, it is most certainly a complete breach of natural justice—never mind the European convention on human rights and our own human rights legislation. I also put it to you that the treatment of Dr. Garfoot at the reinstatement hearing was a complete disgrace, particularly when the chairman cut him off from expressing his point of view—another breach of natural justice.
	I have spoken at some length because I wanted to put on the record the work done by my constituent, and his passionate commitment to people suffering from drugs abuse at a time when this country has an appalling problem with drug addiction and drug abuse. The sadness is that since the clinic closed, many of those patients have returned to a life of crime. Some have even died. Many patients who might have gone to the clinic and been treated have not been able to do so. I wonder how many other doctors are in the same position as Dr. Garfoot, who could have played a vital part under the 2008 drugs strategy in improving the lives of many hundreds of people—and surely, at a time when there is a critical shortage of doctors in some parts of the country, it is not a good use of resources to prevent such doctors from being reinstated.
	I hope that the Minister will answer my questions. I also hope that he will join me in paying tribute to the doctors in this country who work so incredibly hard to help drug addicts. It is not a fashionable part of medical practice, but, day in day out, those doctors are putting their careers on the line, saving lives, working extremely hard to make other people's lives better and helping this country in the war against the total evil that is the drugs trade, which leads to drug addiction, drug abuse and the ruining of young lives.

Brian Iddon: Dr. Adrian Garfoot came to my notice almost immediately when I arrived in Parliament in 1997. In the summer of that year, a young boy hit not just the national but the international headlines. Dillon Hull, aged five, was shot dead in my constituency in August 1997. The bandits were actually after his father, who owed a considerable amount of money for the heroin that he had been selling, but unfortunately Dillon copped it instead.
	The event in that summer was felt by the whole nation, and, as I have said, became an international event. It precipitated me into the drugs debate. I had 12 years' experience of research on opiates with my students at the University of Salford, so I knew something about the subject professionally as well. Given that I had been elected a Member of Parliament and given my professional background, it was inevitable that  The Guardian, "The World This Weekend" and a number of other television and radio shows asked me to contribute to the debates that raged after Dillon Hull was tragically shot. That is how I came to the notice of people such as Adrian Garfoot, who wanted to explain to me what they were doing.
	It should be borne in mind that those times were different from these, just 12 years later. I would not say that there was nowhere for chaotic drug addicts to go in the 1980s and early 1990s, but it was extremely difficult for them to obtain treatment. It is difficult for some people today, but I dare say that that is partly their fault because they have not accepted that they are ready for treatment. At that time, even those who desperately wanted treatment and begged people such as me to find it for them could not obtain it. I have seen no such cases in the last five or six years, but in 1997 and 1998 parents came to me begging me to help their sons—usually sons, but sometimes daughters—to obtain treatment, here, there or anywhere. That was before the Government established the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse. Thank goodness, things are very much better today.
	I had the impression that Dr. Adrian Garfoot was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and so were a lot of doctors like him. He was unconventional in the way in which he treated people, but he was treating the most chaotic heroin addicts in London and in the home counties, for people travelled some distances to see him at the Laybourne clinic.
	I was suspicious, thinking that this was a private clinic and that Dr. Garfoot might have been in it just to make money, but I soon realised that money was not the driving force behind his life. He had an almost missionary role, and felt for those people, with whom no one else wanted to deal. The national health service certainly did not want them. General practitioners did not want them anywhere near their surgeries. But someone had to deal with them, and one of those people was Adrian Garfoot. I remember him telling me some stories. He sometimes worked late at night, and he told me a dreadful story about a young man coming at him swinging an axe. He was able to deal with people such as that, but it is little wonder that other general practitioners did not want to deal with them.
	I congratulate the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham) on bringing Adrian Garfoot to our attention this evening. He managed to stabilise all his patients. Their chaotic lives became almost normal—although not quite normal in most cases. Some of his patients were stabilised on injectable heroin and then oral heroin, and—believe it or not—they were able to work; a lot of his patients went back to work. He also brought families back together again. Wives had to try to live with chaotic husbands. Families separated, but he managed to bring them back together. I thought that he had an almost missionary zeal. Sadly, however, one of his patients then died, and that incident came to the attention of the General Medical Council. As the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk has said, his relapse rate was extremely low, whereas in other areas of treatment in this country at that time, relapse rates were exceedingly high. That must have said something about what Dr. Adrian Garfoot was doing at the time. I was convinced he was doing a good job, therefore, despite this tragic death. That was not surprising to me, in view of the kind of patients he was dealing with. It seemed inevitable that there would be a patient death at the Laybourne clinic among the 1,200 patients he was dealing with at that time.
	Because there was no ready access to public treatment for drug addiction then, quite a number of private doctors were operating. I thought some of them deserved to be struck off. A few of them—perhaps more than a few of them—were in it to make money. I do not think Adrian Garfoot was one of those people, however. That is why I say that he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was convinced, therefore, that I had to go and defend him at the GMC hearing. It lasted 35 minutes or so—I cannot remember how long, but it seemed an eternity. The people who were sat around were all "ologists" of one kind or another—gynaecologists and so forth. However, while talking to them I got the impression that they did not really know the world that Dr. Adrian Garfoot had been living in. Therefore, I was not surprised that the GMC at that time struck him off. I did think, however, that it was due to a misunderstanding and—let me repeat for the third time—due to the fact that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He has truly suffered over the past 12 years or so, and I plead with the Minister to have a look at this case and, perhaps, to have a word with the GMC, because we are talking about a man who is committed to medicine and who has done his best to re-educate himself—although I have not talked to him very recently. I ask my hon. Friend to look at the case of Adrian Garfoot in particular.

Ben Bradshaw: Let me start by congratulating the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham) on securing this further debate on the case of Dr. Adrian Garfoot and the General Medical Council.
	My Department's "Clinical Guidelines" and "Models of Care" guidance promote a range of drug treatments by those competent to prescribe, and the Government fully support appropriate clinical freedom within the constraints of the independent mechanisms to regulate professional practice. The GMC is responsible for regulating medical practice, and its primary purpose is to protect the public. That principle was reaffirmed last year by Members on both sides of the House during the passage of the Health and Social Care Act 2008. It is important to make clear at the outset that the GMC is an independent statutory body, and that it is not directly accountable to Ministers.
	The hon. Gentleman has understandably concerned himself with the case of Dr. Garfoot, and I commend him on the detail of his research and the care he has taken in preparing for this debate. May I commend the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon), too? I have the greatest regard for him and he speaks a great deal of sense on drug issues in general.
	Both the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend will be aware that Dr. Garfoot's situation was the subject of a debate in June 2003, as well as being cited as a case in point in several others: in March 2001, November 2001 and January 2005. It should not be and is not the Government's job to take sides in such a dispute. I cannot comment on the rights or wrongs of the case; indeed, it would be wrong for me to do so. The determination of Dr. Garfoot's fitness to practise was a matter for the GMC's fitness to practise panel, and those tasked with adjudicating in medical fitness to practise hearings have to make a judgment about the appropriateness of clinical interventions in the face of competing evidence and competing professional views. Their decisions are often extremely difficult, as there is often competing evidence and a range of views about appropriate clinical practice. In this case, those differing views have been well-aired.
	When cases relate to the appropriateness of a clinical judgment, a fitness to practise panel has to make a judgment about whether a doctor is applying good medical practice in comparison with the norm in that specialty. In highly specialised practices, such as the treatment of older drug users, that judgment might be more complicated, but it was the clear finding of the panel that Dr. Garfoot's practice was impaired at the time. Let me quote from the finding of 11 September 2001:
	"The Committee found that he had irresponsibly prescribed drugs of addiction and dependence to 12 patients between 1996 and 1999".
	That followed the previous finding that those
	"12 patients all displayed a pattern of excessive treatments, mostly over several years. Some patients became dependent on drugs which they had not taken regularly before".
	The later ruling found that
	"his pattern of clinical management and attitude to the need for his own education fell far short of the standard expected of a medical practitioner."
	That took place at the hearing at which Dr. Garfoot's name was erased from the register. As the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk rightly said, Dr. Garfoot then went on to appeal to the Privy Council. On 19 June, the Privy Council dismissed his appeal against erasure, stating that
	"the circumstances of the case were so serious that the order of erasure was entirely appropriate and inevitable and...there was no basis to justify setting it aside."
	The Medical Act 1983, as amended by the Medical Act 1983 (Amendment) Order 2000, states that no application for restoration of a name to the register can be made to the professional conduct committee until five years from the date of erasure. Also, if an application has already been made and rejected, another application cannot be made for a further 12 months. That order took effect on 3 August 2000, which means that any doctor whose name was erased on or after that date must wait for five years before they can apply for restoration.
	Dr. Garfoot applied for restoration at the end of the initial five-year period. His application was heard in March 2008, when he informed the panel that he had reflected on his prescribing practices and that he now considered them to have been "ridiculous". He also accepted the need to undertake further training in order to return to practice. However, the fitness to practise panel refused his application. In summing up, it remained very concerned about his lack of insight into general and fundamental problems and his failure to keep records, to monitor or review treatment and to keep his knowledge and skills up to date. He became eligible to reapply for restoration last week, on 10 March.
	As I said, the new rules about applications for restoration raised by the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk came into force on 3 August 2000. The 2000 order included transitional arrangements for applications and the effect of those transitional arrangements was that the new rules applied unless erasure had already taken place by 3 August, even if the allegations related to an earlier time. That was the case even if the GMC had already started proceedings. The amendment therefore takes effect from the date that the decision is made and not the date on which the alleged incident or incidents took place. In Dr. Garfoot's case, his name was not erased from the register until 26 June 2002 and so it was clear that the new rules applied to him.
	The hon. Gentleman raised concerns about the dual function that the GMC used to have of hearing and adjudicating on processes. The GMC provides clear and concise guidance for doctors on restoration following erasure by a fitness to practise panel, and that guidance is published on its website. The criticism that the GMC faced during the Shipman inquiry led to the putting in place of new procedures in 2004. However, we believed that public and professional confidence in the system of regulation had already been undermined. The GMC was quick to recognise that reform was needed to change that perception, and to do so it made significant changes, including moving towards an internal separation of its investigation and adjudication functions. However, given the level of—
	 Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 9(3)).
	 Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—( Mark Tami.)

Henry Bellingham: I am very grateful to the Minister for giving way and for some of the points that he has made, which are very helpful. Does he agree with me that it seems inflexible and too rigid for the GMC, in a reinstatement hearing, not to be able to reinstate but with conditions? Obviously, its main concern in Dr. Garfoot's case is not his suitability as a GP, but the way in which he ran the Laybourne clinic.

Ben Bradshaw: I was just about to come to that, and I shall certainly reflect on the point that the hon. Gentleman makes and write to him in more detail about it. My understanding is that, if the GMC were able to do what he suggests it should, the problem would be that it refuses applications for initial registration where there is evidence that the applicant's fitness to practise may be impaired. Therefore, it would not be consistent to make provisions for restoring an applicant to the register with conditions if he or she would be refused registration in the same circumstances at initial registration. It would be unfair to those people who have to prove that they are completely fit to practise for the initial registration.
	The council discussed erasure and restoration in November 1999 and agreed an important principle:
	"Doctors who have been erased have been excluded from the profession indefinitely. Only exceptionally will any doctor be restored to the register following erasure."
	The hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East also raised the general issue of wider drugs policy. Both recognised that we have come a long way in the past 12 years or so in improving both provision and the general approach taken to helping drug addicts manage their addictions. We have increased substantially the number of people entering drug treatment, and the proportion of those who are receiving treatment that is having a long-term, positive impact in tackling their addiction continues to rise year on year. More than 202,000 people received treatment in 2007-08— 138 per cent. more than in 1998, when the figure was 85,000, and well in excess of our previous drug strategy public service agreement target, which was to double the number by 2008. We are keeping 78 per cent. of people in treatment for at least 12 weeks—we believe that that is an indicator of treatment effectiveness, with evidence showing that treatment of at least that length has a lasting, positive impact in tackling an individual's addiction—which is 3 per cent. more than in 2006-07. Collectively, that has all led to improvements in the lives not only of the drug user but of the wider community, with drug-related deaths lower now than they were in 2000, following a doubling in the 1990s. Drug-related crime has also fallen by 22 per cent. since 2003.
	We have raised a number of difficult issues today. There were a couple of detailed points that the hon. Gentleman raised that I am afraid I have not managed to respond to, but I promise to write to him about them—